


inner city sparks

by brattyloser



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-19
Updated: 2014-09-19
Packaged: 2018-02-17 22:57:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,349
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2326133
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brattyloser/pseuds/brattyloser
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He may be a fire, the kind of flame that singes your fingers, but when the lights go down he’s right there beside you holding your hand.</p>
            </blockquote>





	inner city sparks

Ray met Michael when they were kids. Michael was the whitest kid in the class and his bright red lips were twisted into the meanest frown Ray had ever seen on a ten year old’s face. They got into an argument about whose lunchbox was better, Ray’s Batman one or Michael’s Superman, and the argument devolved into one of the greatest fights in PS 114 history. It started off as most fights did: pushing, biting, and choking. The usual. But then came the recruitment of fellow classmates. In mere minutes, Ray and Michael had managed to create two rivaling factions on the playground blacktop and recess was never the same again. That fight jumpstarted a friendship. When Ray and Michael were sitting outside of the principal’s office with ice packs against their bruises and scrapes full of gravel, they made a pact to stick together regardless of their punishment. They ended up with detention for a full calendar year, but Ray still claimed that it was one of the greatest years of his life.

Then time passed, detention came and went, and Ray and Michael continued to hang out. They spent lazy afternoons on apartment rooftops and late nights sitting on fire escapes as they dangled their bare feet above the neighborhood streets. They still fought over the dumbest things, but while Ray mellowed out over the years, Michael seemed to only get angrier. They were like fire and ice, their mothers joked, and fire was an all too accurate description of Michael. He had an affinity for fire that was only outmatched by his love for a brawl. Flames ran in that boy’s veins and Ray wondered if those flames would one day consume both of them whole.

Ray and Michael eventually become _RayandMichael_ around the eighth grade when they both realized that “best friends” wasn’t an accurate enough term for what they had. They were a couple. A pair. A single unit that functioned so much better together than they did alone.

Ray was supposed to be working the late shift at his dad’s convenience store one night when Michael strolled in and suggested they do something more fun.

“It’s a slow night anyway, right?” Michael said as he hopped up on the checkout counter. He didn’t even acknowledge that Mrs. Ornelas was standing at the register and waiting for Ray to finish ringing her up. She gave Michael a look, but it was undercut by the large pink curlers in her hair and the fact that Michael didn’t seem to notice her irritation. He swung his feet back and forth, his heels hitting a steady rhythm against the low shelves of candy. “Everyone’s out dancing. The club is bumpin’, man. Let’s go do something more fun than this.”

Michael waved his hands around like imaginary castanets and wiggled his butt to the silent rhythm in his head. Ray moved the loaf of bread that was dangerously close to serving as collateral damage from Michael’s dance moves. He rang up the bread and bagged it, telling Mrs. Ornelas the total. She handed him cash and Ray entered the amount in the register. The register rang and the cash drawer opened with a swish.

“You have anything specific in mind or…?” Ray trailed off as he counted the change. He handed Mrs. Ornelas her money and bagged groceries and she shuffled out the door, curlers bouncing atop her head like buoys lost at sea.

Ray propped his elbows up on the counter and rested his chin in his hands. He knew better than to just go along with Michael’s plans without asking questions first. Numerous adventures had ended up with Ray on lookout for the police while Michael busted open fire hydrants or scrawled his name in great colorful letters on brick walls or lit fireworks in the worst places.

That was one of their major differences.

While Ray tried to keep his head low and avoided police cars like the plague (because honestly, the police were a lot like the plague in his eyes: deadly and vicious and unforgiving and hiding in plain sight), Michael would stare in their eyes and spit in their face while he openly defied them. The number of times he had shown up at Ray’s place with a black eye or bloody lip was countless these days, but being bruised and bloodied was better than being dead.

“I do have something specific in mind, but it’s a surprise.” Michael hopped off the counter and hooked his thumbs on the straps of the backpack that was hanging off his shoulders. “C’mon, Ray! Live a little.”

Ray should have protested. He should have put up a fight and told Michael that he had responsibilities unlike a certain reckless hoodlum he knew who despised authority. But then Michael smiled at Ray and the freckles that dusted his cheeks practically danced under the fluorescent lights of the shop.

That was how Ray ended up on the rooftop of the building across the street from the dance club sucking a dark bruise into the pale flesh of Michael’s throat. Michael hummed as he ran his fingers through Ray’s dark hair.

“Isn’t this better then standing around some boring cash register all night? Way more fun.”

Ray pulled away with a pop. He gave Michael a look that Michael didn’t even see because his eyes were half-lidded and he was too busy basking in his own greatness.

“I don’t work at the bodega for fun, Michael. I do it because-”

“Because ‘you love your family and care about your pops’. Yeah, yeah whatever. Doesn’t change the fact that it’s boring.”

Ray flicked Michael right between the eyes. He felt pride bloom in his chest when Michael sat up with a yelp as he rubbed his face. Ray clasped his hands behind his head and lay on his back to stare up at the sky.

“You’re a dick, you know that?” He said.

Michael glared down at him, clearly not amused by Ray’s assault or insult, but he didn’t say another word. He lay down next to Ray, mimicking his pose and adjusting their bodies so that their hips touched, one searing point of contact that kept both of them grounded in each other’s orbit on the roof of that raggedy apartment building. They settled into a comfortable silence.

The club across the street was nothing but loud music, thumping beats, and flashing lights. The stars weren’t visible from the streetlamps. The sounds and familiarity of the barrio were everywhere and everything in that moment was perfect for Ray because he and Michael had each other and the neighborhood. Skipping work wasn’t the worst thing in the world.

But then everything cut out, the neighborhood went dark, and all of the comfort and ease of the moment ended. There was noise and shouting from the club and, with the streetlights out, the stars were fiercely blinking down from above. It took Ray a fraction of a second to realize what was happening. He scrambled to his feet and took off running towards the door that led to the stairs, leaving Michael to confusedly sit in the dark.

It was a blackout. Ray took the stairs two at a time and ignored the questions of the tenets who were opening the doors of their powerless apartments and asking what was going on. The power was out, the barrio was going to go into a frenzy, and Ray didn’t close the shop.

The stars, for their twinkling and beauty, were all but useless as a means of light and Ray had to shove people aside on the street to get back to the store. He skid to a stop in front of the storefront and thanked God above that the windows weren’t busted. The looting hadn’t started quite yet but the unease in the streets had risen to a near panic. Ray checked to make sure the door was locked and tried to pull the grate down.

It didn’t budge. Ray tugged at it again. The damn thing was stuck. Ray cursed his luck because it was late and the power was out across the whole neighborhood. He really didn’t want to stick around when the thugs showed up. He pulled at the grate again but it refused to come down and he just knew _he just knew_ his dad was going to kill him if he let the store get robbed during a blackout.

This place was everything they had. Sure, his dad would take up odd jobs during months when they could barely make rent, taxiing tourists to Central Park and Madison Avenue and serving drinks at an overhyped and overcrowded bar. And yes, his mother scrubbed the shiny floors of expensive looking buildings in the Upper East Side to make ends meet, buildings that Ray would never be allowed into even on a good day. But this store was their main source of income. This store was his family’s everything.

Ray’s breath hitched in his throat and he could have sworn that was the taste of his own heart in his mouth as he cursed the dumb grate over and over again. There was the sound of screaming and glass breaking in the distance and Ray suddenly realized that if he couldn’t close up shop he only had one other option. He fumbled the keys and unlocked the doors of the store. Feeling his way around the dark store, Ray made his way over to the cash register. He blindly scrambled over the countertop and practically fell on his face on the other side. After a brief moment of patting his hands around in the dark, he found what he was looking for.

It was a bat, weighty in his hands with a smooth and unworn handle.

Ray climbed back over the counter and left the store, but not before he knocked over the magazine rack. He would have to clean that up in the morning. If there was a store left in the morning, of course. Ray was trying to relock the door with practically no light, the sound of breaking glass, guns going off, and panicked yelling growing louder, when Michael jogged up beside him.

“The fuck are you doing? We’ve got to go, man. The neighborhood’s going to shit and they’re looting everything.”

Ray’s fingers were trembling and he couldn’t lock a door in the dark with one hand, it was impossible. “I can’t leave the store, dude. The grate won’t come down and if we lose shit, I’m dead.”

“You’re dead if you stay, Ray!” Michael pulled out his phone, nothing fancy but at least it had a light up screen, and pointed it at Ray’s shaking hand. “I’m sure your dad’ll understand!”

Ray finally slid the key into the lock and felt the deadbolt click into place. He looked to Michael, whose face was lit up all wrong in the blanketing darkness. Ray’s hands were slippery around the handle of the bat. He tried to convince Michael that he had to guard the store. If Michael wasn’t going to help pull down the grate or stay and fight, then he was better off leaving by himself.

Michael ran a hand through his curls and something in his face flickered and sparked just as the light on his phone died. “Gimme your lighter.”

“Wha-?” Now wasn’t the time to smoke and, besides, hadn’t he told Michael that he had quit? Michael’s hand gripped Ray’s arm and Michael shook him as he repeated himself.

“Give me your fucking lighter, dude! Do you want to make it out of tonight with you and the store in one piece or not?”

Ray quickly delved his hand into the pocket of his jeans and fished out the cheap lighter that he still carried around out of habit. He handed it off to Michael and before he could ask what his boyfriend was going to do with a lighter that was dangerously low on fuel, there was a flashlight pointed in his face.

“Oh shit, check out these punks we’ve got over here. What do y’all think you’re doing out so late?”

Ray didn’t know that his hands could shake any more than they were two minutes ago, but his body was determined to prove him wrong. The voice belonged to a tall guy with a beefy neck and thick arms. He had enough tattoos inked into his skin that he could almost be considered a work of art. If the Met was into brown boys who liked to commit vandalism during blackouts of course. Ray would bet all of the money in the cash register that the Met wasn’t into that sort of thing. The guy who had spoken, the leader, Ray assumed, was flanked on either side by four other guys. The flashlight pointed in Ray’s face flicked over to Michael, but he didn’t even flinch in the light.

“Shouldn’t you be in bed? Don’t you know the power’s out?” The leader leered at Ray and Michael, his snapback cocked to one side like the brim of a cowboy hat in those western movies Ray’s grandmother liked to watch.

Ray blinked through the misshapen silhouettes dancing in front of his eyes in time to make out the barrel of a glock pointed in his face. This was it. This was how Ray’s measly excuse for a life was going to end. He was going to die protecting some crummy bodega that he hated working at from a group of thugs he didn’t even recognize.

They must have fancied themselves a gang. Ray had lost enough friends to local thugs’ promises of fame and fortune over the years. Ray wasn’t sure how good a life of fame and fortune could be if it involved turf wars and drug runs.

There was a click and a sizzle before something flared up out of the corner of Ray’s line of sight. There was yelling. The dude with the gun stepped back. Ray could see Michael standing with his feet spread apart and a fierce look on his face as he brandished a handful of lit Roman Candles. One of the fireworks fired off and spewed towards one of the thugs, who jumped out of the way.

“Back the fuck up, man,” Michael shifted his backpack to show that it was filled to the brim with fireworks. Ray didn’t have a chance to wonder where he got them because another Candle spat fire and Michael took a step forward.

“Alright, cuz,” One of the guys put his hands up in a placating gesture. The barrel of his gun was pointed skyward in his spread palms and he stepped back. “Just chill. Damn.”

Michael didn’t chill and the fireworks were still sputtering in his hand as he lit another one. Ray had no clue what was in that one because it screamed and spat colorful bursts that made the group of men back up. Ray widened his own stance and brandished his bat. He didn’t know if he looked intimidating in the least in the glow of Michael’s metaphorical firearms but it was a relief when the thugs turned tail and headed towards a different area of the neighborhood.

Ray’s arms were still shaking and the sound of people freaking out was still evident in his ears, but he looked at Michael with a smile nonetheless. Michael opened his mouth to say something but one of the fireworks in his hands, lit by one of its flickering neighbors, practically exploded and shot a flare skyward. The resulting burst lit up the night sky, bathing the darkened barrio in a rosy light.

Ray watched Michael watch the explosion; he watched the entranced look on Michael’s face as the embers flickered against the stars. He couldn’t believe that Michael’s reckless plan worked. It shouldn’t have taken Ray by surprise, Michael had been brash and heedless for years, but who in their right mind used fireworks to fight off vandals? And who kept fireworks in their backpack in the first place? Ray finally let the bat drop to his side. Then Michael tore his attention from the sky to stare at Ray and when they locked eyes Ray knew what was going to happen before Michael even made his next move.

Michael dropped his bag on the ground, pulled out the remaining fireworks, and set them up in a clumsy arrangement in the middle of the street before he began to light them. For once, Michael’s infatuation with flames and fireworks seemed to be good for something. He was lucky he didn’t blow his own arm off though, if Ray was being completely honest.

Shrill whistles cut through the chaos of the night right before the sky lit up again. The sky dazzled and danced with lights that temporarily cut through the suffocating darkness that accompanied blackouts. With every firework that went off, Ray looked around and could see that some people had slowed down their panic and watched the display with a sort of frightened awe.

“I wanted to surprise you,” Michael was standing next to Ray and he bumped their shoulders together, “Thought it’d make our date more romantic or something.”

Ray frowned and gave Michael a confused look. “Wait, making out on the roof is a date to you? Really?”

Michael shrugged and shoved his hands into his pockets. “You’ve never complained before.”

That was before Ray had been informed that those were considered dates. Swapping spit on a roof wasn’t a date, it wasn’t even romantic. It was just…fun. It was just what they did when they should be doing something else. Dates were something different altogether. Dates were what grown folks did, like going out to eat at somewhere that wasn’t Mr. Sorola’s diner. Dates involved movies and sweet good-night kisses on the front stoop.

But Ray and Michael were just two poor kids in a poor neighborhood who had only seen real dates on broken down tv sets, so Ray let Michael’s comment pass because he was right: Ray never did complain before.

“Aren’t Roman Candles illegal anyway?” Ray said instead.

Michael leaned all of his body weight against Ray and hummed in his throat. Ray really didn’t think it should have been that difficult of a question to answer. The answer was yes and they both knew it.

“To be fair,” Michael started and, oh great, Ray knew where this was going, “There are a lot of things in life that are illegal, Ray. Doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do them.”

No, that was exactly what that meant, Ray thought. If something’s illegal, it’s usually for a good reason. If something’s illegal and you do it anyway, then you’re going to have to deal with major consequences that will probably end up with you bruised and bloodied on your boyfriend’s doorstep like always.

“No, that’s exactly what that means, Michael. What is wrong with you? I swear to God-”

Ray was cut off from his fussing by Michael’s laughter. His center of gravity was still off balance because Michael was pressed against his side, but the way his body shook turned the corner of Ray’s mouth up just a bit. Idiot. Michael was an idiotic firework of a human being and the fiery flowers that erupted against the night sky was a tangible testament to that fact.

Ray pushed back, sloughing Michael’s weight off of him and hooked his fingers in the belt loops of Michael’s pants. He pulled Michael close so that they were kissing in the middle of a blackout in the barrio under a brilliant display of fireworks.

So maybe Michael had a point, Ray mused as he bit at Michael’s bottom lip, maybe there were a lot of illegal things in life and maybe some of those things were worth doing. But if Ray was going to be doing anything, illegal or not, he was glad that it was Michael who was dragging him along and lighting up the drearier aspects of his life.


End file.
